Brian Wood is concerned and who can blame him? With a few exceptions (like in a galaxy far, far away or in the Hyborian Age) the writer’s work consistently deals with environmental and cultural issues. During the Brian Wood Spotlight Panel at C2E2, moderator (and Dark Horse Director of Public Relations) Jeremy Atkins and fans alike brought up works such as Channel 0, DMZ and The Massive hoping to hear the creator's thoughts on issues raised in his comics. Although the panel drifted to questions regarding Wood's work at Marvel and why it’s cool that Princess Leia flies an X-Wing, the discussion continually returned to real-world topics such as privatization, environmentalism and commercialism.
When Atkins polled the audience to see who had been reading what comics, he was shocked and delighted to see more hands fly up for The Massive than Star Wars. He went on to explain it was surprising because of how commercially successful Star Wars has been; however it made sense to me. The panel was not a discussion of Brian Wood's most profitable or marketable material, but rather his work as a whole. The fans present were familiar with his publication history and seemed to care more about his original works, the books Wood said he wrote because they were a part of himself.
IGN Comics: Much of your work focuses on environmental concerns, do you think those comics are more poignant now than possibly 10 or 20 years ago?
Brian Wood: Sure, I feel like maybe what's different than from say the 80s is that it would feel like fantasy. It would be written and presented that way. No one was really thinking about it the way we are right now. As much as I loathe the whole climate change denier thing, I feel like it does serve a function.
At the very least it keeps people talking about it. Often times if I get onto one topic, like with The Massive, and become completely engrossed, it bleeds into other books, which is why it's kind of showing up in Ultimate X-Men. It's almost in a subconscious way, it's just kind of in my brain.
IGN: In your C2E2 Spotlight Panel, you said that books like DMZ and The Massive are more personal for you and that you need to write those kinds of books. How do the ideas in these books affect your life?
Wood: I feel like when you live a city there's only so much you can do. I'm keenly aware, and I've become more and more aware as I age and have kids, of my own bad habits. Like, it wasn't until very recently that I would wash out every jar. Washing out a peanut butter jar to recycle it is a pain in the ass. That's a really minor, trivial example, but I try to be aware for the sake of the kids and obviously for the larger picture.
The idea of the snowy North Pole is an image in my mind that's going to be different for [my kids].
But what's gotten really personal, and I've realized this as I do research for The Massive, is how close we are to a situation where stuff that I fully take for granted, my kids may not. Like access to free, clean water. I take a long-ass shower and when my kids are 25, how are things going to be? Also, loss of parts of the world. The idea of the snowy North Pole is an image in my mind that's going to be different for them. Its small examples like that that build up into a sense of dread. I feel compelled to talk about it, if only for my own sake. To help me think about it.
IGN: The Massive incorporates different types of fictional media like newspaper clippings and government archival papers. Are these a commentary on things like the 24-hour news cycle or the government’s treatment of environmental policies?
Wood: I think it's more a comment on how pervasive the news is for all of us. We as average people almost get too much information and it's so easy to put bulls**t out there and that's the reason we have a high percentage of people who think things that are untrue. I think it's because the crazies have a voice too. We don't have a single source of news like when I was a kid.
There's a balance there; there's definitely problems with only having a single source but there's also big issues with having an equal platform for everyone who has something stupid to say. So when I write all these news things, some of them are obviously untrue. To the reader it appears as a false news story; it's representing something that's happening but wrongly-- or it's factual, or it's accurate or it's opinion based. But I use those to manipulate the story and the reader in the way that the media does in real life. The tool of false news is such a powerful one, I feel like I should harness that and use it in a story.
Wood: She's definitely a Superman or Supergirl-like character. I mean, that's the kind of model I'm applying to her. Really what I was going for there was how young people, especially athletes, can be co-opted by all kinds of groups and expected to perform. Then they're used up fairly quickly and then ignored. It's extremely brutal. Many years ago I read this and it stuck in my mind about how these hardcore Olympic athletes start when they're very young and by the time they're 18 or 19 they’re has-beens. So they can't do the sport anymore and that happens at the beginning of their life.
There's a loss of childhood there too. Mara is light in the way that it's short, and I'm picking and choosing the ways I'm talking about this, so it's not a comprehensive look at everything I just said. We don't know her ideals yet. She's still very much in a reactive state, trying to figure it out herself.
IGN: You've taken over or worked on many of the big Dark Horse titles. You're doing Conan and Star Wars now, is there another title that you'd like to write at some point? Are you going to jump on Buffy?
Wood: I've been asked to do some Buffy work and that actually scares me more than Star Wars, in terms of the fans. Maybe because it's more recent or maybe it's because I don't know it as well, but I would really have to educate myself in order to show my face after writing a Buffy book. I feel open, I'm kind of taking them as they come. Both Conan and Star Wars were offered to me and both times they're comics that I never would have pitched. It never would have even occurred to me. So when I think about future books I never think I would like to adapt this or that. Left to my own devices I would always be doing original stuff, but these jobs come to me and I find it hard to say no.
There's this other book [Robert E. Howard story] called Sword Woman, it's pretty obscure, but it's a real novel. It’s a story about a 16th century French girl who defies her arranged marriage and kills everybody with a sword. For that writer it's pretty feminist and progressive. It's hardly ever spoken about, and I saw it and thought "I could write that." It instantly had massive appeal to me and felt right up my alley in a couple different ways. So I got provisional approval from Dark Horse to do it at some point. I'm really busy so I don't know when, but at some point I want to write that.
IGN: Would it be in the ongoing Conan title or its own limited series?
Wood: It has nothing to do with Conan, it would be its own thing. I envision it being small or I would at least start out small and see where it goes from there.
IGN: In Ultimate X-Men you seem to be setting up a new dichotomy with Kitty Pryde and Mach Two in the place of Professor X and Magneto. Can we expect the rivalry to progress like Professor X and Magneto's relationship?
Wood: It definitely comes to a head but in a different way. There's sort of an external threat from Jean Grey. Kitty Pryde and Mach Two are going to be forced onto the same side, kind of by circumstance. It's not that they're going to be on the same page, but much in the same way Professor X and Magneto had to work together from time to time, it's that sort of situation. Like in the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of way.
We have a big arc coming up called "World War X" which is very grand sounding and it really is pretty big. The whole mutant thing that I've been talking about all this time is going to be resolved. Is it their home? Are people coming after them? Where are they going to live? Are they going to be chased constantly? This is sort of the ultimate battle for their permanent homeland and identity and citizenship and everything that would stop them from being hunted down.
Wood: Only recently with the new X-Men book. When I was writing X-Men last year I was kind of following a previous writer and a lot of stuff had already been set up and figured out so I kind of picked up. Now with the X-Men #1 relaunch, in some ways I'm starting from scratch with these characters and I'm finding a lot of my Ultimate character stuff interfering with creating a new book. It's not hard, I keep a lot of notes. I have a notebook for every book where I chart all my progress and outline everything. So anytime I start a new script, like with Ultimate X-Men, I go back to my notebook and refresh myself. So it's very much about the data. And I count on my editors too, they watch my back.
IGN: I can't help but notice bits and pieces of the Ultimate Universe in the main continuity. It seems like it has been a big influence on the Marvel Universe.
Wood: It has been. It's been around long enough now where writers like myself and [Brian Michael] Bendis write on both sides so I guess it's bound to happen.
Dylan Sutcliff is a freelance writer. You can find him on IGN at DylanSutcliff or on Twitter @DylanSutcliff.
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